The Independent Electoral Commission said it has mainstreamed the NCDC guidelines into the guidelines provided by the Commission for the conduct of the September 19 Governorship election in Edo state.
INEC’s Head of Voters Education and Publicity in Edo State, Mr Timidi Wariowei, stated this in Benin City at a Civil Society Organisation Roundtable on the 2020 Governorship Election in Edo.
Wariowei said the poll would be conducted in a away to avoid mass spread of the disease as every voter at the polling units must wear a facemask or have something to cover their nose and m outh robe allowed to vote.
‘There must also be a distance of 2 meter or 6 feet between each voter on queue at the polling units. We will also be providing alcohol-based disinfectants to be used to disinfect the card reader after every accreditation during the poll,’ he assured.
He however noted that many eligible voters in the state will be disenfranchised owing to inability to carry out distribution of PVCs due to COVID 19 restrictions.
He said; ‘The continuous voters registration would have taken care of those that have attained the age of 18 years after the last exercise and those that were unable to register for one reason or the other during the exercise.
Wariowei said that, in spite of of these challenges, INEC was ready for the conduct of September poll.
He added that 14 political parties met the deadline for the submission of their candidates and some trainings have since commenced for some officers that would participate in the conduct of the election.
He said training for Supervisory Presiding Officers (SPOs) and Collation Officers (COs) would be the last to be done a week before the election.
